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Watch my life unravel...
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Tony Trimingham was one of two speakers last night at a public forum at the Ottawa Public Library. He came all the way from Australia to talk about harm reduction programs, and to tell us about his son, Damien, who died of a heroin overdose twelve years ago at the age of 23. It was […] As you’ve probably heard, the funding for two residential drug treatment centres for youth was announced Tuesday – a 15-bed facility for English-speaking kids, and a 5-bed facility for French-speaking kids. Better than nothing, I suppose. But I predict the effects will be negligible. Most of the addicts I see would not qualify for treatment […] InSite is the only supervised drug injection site in North America, and it’s located in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. “Insite is supported by a broad range of organizations and individuals including the City of Vancouver, the Province of British Columbia, Vancouver Coastal Health, Premier Gordon Campbell, Minister David Emerson, Senator Larry Campbell, Vancouver Police Chief […] Ottawa’s drug problem has been getting a fresh surge of attention lately. Between the W-FIVE piece last week entitled Capital Shame, the controversy about expanding the harm reduction programs, and our Medical Officer of Health, David Salisbury, resigning, we’re in the spotlight. I went to a public meeting at City Hall about the drug problem […] Good news for Ottawa’s crack addicts and those who care whether they live or die: the province has stepped in with funding for our Crack Kit Program. As you may recall, Ottawa City Council withdrew its share of funding for the program earlier this year. Evidently Council thought the lives of all of our addicts […] Don’t you just love how Mayor Larry comes up with all these facile ‘solutions’ to complex problems? Scrap the crack kit program to get rid of addicts. Bribe the competition to bypass democracy. Install “Kindness Meters” to eliminate panhandlers. The Kindness Meters, if you haven’t heard, are refurbished parking meters, now being used as the […] Somehow the Mayor and I ended up at the same community forum today. I stayed all day, while he just made an appearance. Too bad: there was much he could have learned, since homelessness is one of his more conspicuous areas of ignorance. The Mayor said some nice things about the work of the Alliance […] Sunday morning, like most Sunday mornings, the Ottawa Sun was blowing all over the neighbourhood. They’ve been giving newspapers away on Sundays by tossing them onto everybody’s stoop, where the wind immediately separates them into individual sheets and blows them into gardens and gutters. I took a picture and emailed it to the Sun. But […] Part Two was the Open Mic – questions and comments from people in the audience. It was actually pretty interesting, because there was a real mix of attitudes and opinions. Until this point, I got the sense this was one of those “preaching to the choir” things, since everybody seemed to agree with each other. There […] I’d estimate the turnout at about 200 or so. Even though it was held in Council Chambers, as far as I could tell there weren’t any councillors there. My note-taking skills are rusty. I’d try to write something down verbatim because it was so interesting or eloquently stated, but by the time I’d faithfully recorded […] |
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